45
Sailor
Emotional Explosion
I SQUIRMED AND THRASHED AS X BLINDFOLDED me with his hand, then smashed his mouth to mine.
He claimed me in one vicious, violent kiss.
Collapsing against me, he made my heart stop, my mind snap, and my soul flutter into tatters at his feet.
He kissed me painfully hard, exquisitely hard.
With a single kiss, he bulldozed through the fortress I’d painstakingly built. A fortress I didn’t even know existed until its bricks shattered into dust and I snapped into a creature I didn’t recognise.
I switched from fighting him to kissing him back.
Our fight sharpened the air. The tension and frustration. The freedom I’d felt at speaking up for myself and embracing wildness. The chaos and need, the crazy and desperate. I didn’t have to hide with him. I could yell at him without fearing he’d strike. I could strip away all my lies and be mean and needy and wrong.
God, I’d never gotten this angry before over something this trivial. Never let myself feel these levels of emotions.
But now?
Now I felt all of them.
I felt need and annoyance, betrayal and relief.
But beneath all of them, I felt love and lust and bone-aching longing.
I fought him as his tongue speared past my lips, slicing through my thoughts and setting me blissfully free. My carefully cultivated personality of likes and dislikes, limits and desires all tumbled like hollow dominos.
With a guttural groan, he attacked me in a maelstrom of nasty, nice, bruising, and blissful. We kissed hungrily, savagely. I lost the ability to think as he touched me, kissed me, then kicked my legs apart and pressed his hips into mine.
He thrust up as he shoved his tongue in my mouth.
I no longer knew if I fought him off or dragged him closer.
I lost track of his hands, his lips, his tongue. He touched me with rabid fingers all while holding me reverently.
I wasn’t afraid.
I was liberated.
I kissed him back.
Harder, deeper, meaner.
I bit his bottom lip until I tasted blood. I clawed at his neck until I left my mark.
He snarled and almost shoved me through the wall with his need.
My fists pummelled his shoulders, siphoning all my feelings into physical form. But he didn’t stop. He just accepted my violence. He let me punch him all while he kissed me like a man intent on consuming my every thought and wish and dream.
And I loved him for that.
I loved that I could give in to this lunacy and embrace my need to stand up for myself all while giving in. I loved that he dominated me, but I never, not once , felt unsafe.
He was everything I’d been looking for and the thought of him vanishing after this? It made me grab fistfuls of his hair and yank him painfully close. To hold on tight. To jerk and punish and hurt.
He snarled into my mouth, relinquishing all his power to me, all while forcing me to submit to him. I surrendered to his control and shivered at his sacrifice to be my punching bag while he dragged me, kicking and screaming, into freedom.
I would never be the same after this. Never want another man after this—
“Slut!”
I gasped as Goblin-Milton sliced through my thoughts.
“Always knew you were a whore.”
I fell backward through time.
Past and present combined, delivering every one of Milton’s punches, kicks, and suffocation. I went rigid in X’s arms. Phantom pain ripped through my limbs. Tears leaked against my control.
He froze.
His fingers tightened over my eyes, keeping me blind all while he wrenched his mouth away.
“No, don’t—” I mewled. “Don’t stop.”
“How can I not?” he choked.
Our mania turned to agony. We stood in the eye of the storm, breaking each other apart.
“I didn’t mean to…it’s not you.” I squirmed beneath his fingers. “Let me see. Drop your hand.”
He didn’t reply. Didn’t move.
Trapped, my heart seized, breasts ached, and legs struggled to stand. More tears slipped beneath his palm, brimming with frustration.
I wanted to scream.
Why did I have to cry?
Why did Milton still have this hold on me?
Why did you have to stop?
“Hey…it’s okay.” He shuddered, nudging his nose to mine, softly, gently. “It’s just me. I know I’m angry with you right now, and you’re furious with me, but…I would never hurt you. You know that, right? This stops the second you change your mind. Just say the word, and I’m gone.”
“It’s not that.” I sagged against him, giving in to him keeping me blindfolded. “It’s not even him. I…” I struggled to put into words to describe the sweetest ecstasy he’d given. “I was free for the first time. I stepped into someone I’ve always wanted to be.”
He stayed quiet, letting me sift through my truth.
But then he shifted as if to let me go.
I dug my nails into his waist. “If you leave, you will never be welcome back here again. Do you hear me?”
His fingers flexed over my eyes. “But if I’m making it worse—”
“You’re not. You’re making everything better.” Swallowing hard, I tipped up my chin. “Kiss me.”
“We should talk about—”
“I’m done talking. What I want is for you to finish what you started.”
He let out a harsh growl. “Lori, I—”
“Wait.”
Lori.
He called me Sailor Rose before.
How?
Sucking in a shaky breath, I whispered, “You called me Sailor. In the garden.”
He went deathly still.
Cold water trickled down my spine. “X…h-how do you know my real name?”
A tortured noise sounded in the back of his throat. His hips rocked into mine almost as if he had no control over the obsession we’d started.
Blinded by him, my other senses kicked in until I swore every part of him throbbed with guilt and regret and grief.
I hated it.
I hated that our passion switched to self-consciousness, ruining everything.
And in that moment, on the precipice of getting everything I wanted, I didn’t want to know. I didn’t want to see his face or know his name or have reality ruin this.
I suffered my own guilt that I’d chosen to sleep with a stranger instead of dating my kind-hearted neighbour, but…I couldn’t deny that pieces of me had fallen for X.
I’d tripped the night he’d watched me cry in the garden, then wrapped me in a blanket to keep me warm. I’d fallen with every message and whisper, every touch and text.
I’d fallen for a stranger all while falling for my neighbour, and now my heart tore in two because I didn’t want to stop.
Anger returned, filling me with spark and fire. I dug my fingers over his thundering heart, fighting the urge to gouge my way through his chest to see if he felt as confused as me. “Actually, don’t answer that. I don’t—”
“I’ve watched you for a while,” he groaned as if the words were torn out of him. “I’ve heard your friend Lily call you by your full name. I…” He swallowed hard as if scrambling for half-truths. “I’ve seen your mail too.”
The darkness from his hand was absolute; I couldn’t see if he was lying.
His fingers threaded with mine against his chest. Without a word, he pressed my palm down until it felt as if I held his pounding heart. His body trembled with heat. The closeness of his lips made me tingle, all while my stomach flipped upside down as a bolt of lust arrowed like lightning.
Why did he feel so familiar?
Why was I so drawn to him?
It was too much. Too intense. Too painful.
He shifted and pressed his lips to my ears, making me break out in goosebumps. “I’ve also watched your neighbour.”
I melted.
I wanted.
“You have?”
The tip of his tongue traced the shell of my ear, making me shudder. “He’s an idiot. If he had any guts, he’d tell you that he loves you. He’d admit he’s wanted to touch you like this for years.”
“How could you possibly—”
“Know that he loves you?” A broken chuckle fell from him. “You just have to look at him to see it.”
My heart twisted in my chest. “Why are you telling me this?”
“Because you should order me to leave and be with him instead.”
I trembled at the thought of stumbling next door and kissing Zander this way.
I couldn’t picture it. Couldn’t see him ever being this rough with me, this hungry with me.
And that made me sad because Zander must never know about this.
Lily must never know.
X had promised to be my dirty secret, and he would stay that way.
“Stop talking about my neighbour.”
“You should give him a chance,” he murmured. “He would treat you far better than—”
“And there it is. I knew it.” Defiant annoyance surged, followed by aching frustration. I struggled to get rid of his blinding palm. “I knew your threats were empty. You have no intention of—”
“Fucking you?” He drove his hips into mine, branding me with his hardness. “Are you so sure about that?”
I shivered, lust dragging me back into its dark whirlpool. “Words are cheap.”
“Words are safety.” His lips skated from my ear and along my jaw. “Did you think of one, by the way? Seeing as you’re so determined to make me do this, and you’ve just proven you’ll have flashbacks, I need a word. Give me a word that will make me stop the second you say it. Because without it, I won’t. I won’t check in with you next time you flinch. I won’t ask if you’re okay when I’m balls deep inside you. That’s my promise to you. I messed this up by stopping now. And I won’t have the strength to do it again. When I kiss you next, nothing will make me stop.” His voice dropped to a rough snarl. “Nothing but a word, so give me one…before it’s too late.”
“Are you trying to scare me off?” My heart raced. “Because it’s not working.”
“Don’t you get it?” he hissed. “I’m scaring myself. This isn’t for you, it’s for me. Give me a goddamn word, so I have a line not to cross because I’m losing myself to everything I’ve ever wanted, and I honestly don’t know how I’ll cope.” Pulling back a little, cotton rustled as if he went to pull his mask back up. “A word, Sailor, or I’m leaving.”
Sailor.
It felt so strange to have him call me that. To hear his voice ache with despair.
It clutched me around the heart and made me leap off the last of my trepidation.
I chose the first word that popped into my head.
“North,” I panted, my fingernails stabbing into his chest. “My safe word is north.”
An animalistic grunt wrenched from him. “ That’s the word you chose?”
My eyes tried to flare beneath his hand.
Oh God.
Why?
Why did it have to be that one?
Why did I link Zander to this?
Why did I say his last name?
I opened my mouth to change my answer. To pick any other stupid letter but X made a noise that arrowed straight through my heart and left me in pieces.
“North it is.” He slammed his mouth back on mine, wrenching a moan from the depths of my soul. I cried out as he drove his tongue inside.
He lost control, broke every resistance, and devoured me.
And I let him.
I clung to his hair as he delivered the same mind-twisting pleasure he’d given the first night he’d made me come. His every lick, his every breath, his every rock drove me past flashbacks and fears and straight into freedom and fantasy.
I wasn’t afraid or scared.
Because I trusted him.
I trusted him to hurt me as well as heal me.
I trusted him, and good God , that was the best feeling in the world.
I no longer worried or took responsibility for my own protection because he was here. This man who’d walked into my life as if he’d always belonged. This man who caged me in his arms and imprinted his very soul onto my lips.
His heart pounded against my ribs as if it fought to crawl inside me. He pawed at me as if I’d vanish at any moment.
I cried out as he suddenly lifted me with one arm and waited for me to wrap my legs around his waist. We both hissed as the throbbing heat of his erection branded between us.
Keeping his palm over my eyes, he carried me into the living room, never stopping our kiss.
Dumping me onto my feet again, his lips turned demonic.
I answered him back with feral starvation.
The deeper we kissed, the more nothing else mattered.
Not names.
Not pasts or mistakes or truths.
Just this.
Just heartbeats and blood, need and belonging.
Throwing my arms around his shoulders, I hung on as his head turned, his lips slid, and he yanked our kiss from insanity to cruelty.
Tears welled and fell, streaking down my cheeks as I surrendered every piece.
I needed him to break me. To break with me.
I needed violence because I was strong enough to survive.
I needed bloodshed and brutality because those were proof of life and living.
“I’m not going to stop just because you’re crying. You haven’t said the safe word, so I’m going to take everything you have to offer me.” Spinning me around, he pinched my nape and kept my eyes facing the living room wall.
The fresh white paint I’d used gleamed gold from the sun. The ancient box TV hissed with snow, turning itself on at some point in our mauling. Peng huddled on the windowsill, looking at us with wide green eyes.
X hissed into my ear from behind. “Don’t turn around. You do, and I’m gone.”
Panting hard, dripping wet with need, I swayed in the centre of the living room while he stomped down the corridor. He moved about in the laundry. The sounds of him raiding Nana’s old boxes of supplies echoed, just before he marched back and set my skin alight with sensitivity.
Just having him in the same room as me caused my entire body to break out in mind-searing flames.
Crowding behind me, he pressed something soft and heavy over my eyes. Without a word, he tied the butterfly bead mask in place, repeating what we’d done the night he’d finally snapped and permitted me to make him come.
I trembled as he spun me around and tugged at my shirt. “Off.”
Raising my arms, I didn’t speak as he removed my black shirt and unhooked my bra beneath. My nipples pebbled at the sound of my clothing being tossed away.
My heart leaped into my throat as his fingers brushed my bare belly, undoing the button of my jeans shorts and unzipping me. “Hold onto me if you need to.”
I fumbled for his shoulders, blind and completely at his mercy. Balancing on one leg, I bit my bottom lip as he stripped my shorts off, then slid my underwear down.
My pulse skyrocketed as I stood before him, unable to see and utterly nude.
Pulling my hands off his shoulders, he commanded, “Stand there. Don’t move.” Clothing rustled as he undressed. His boots thudded as if he’d tossed them aside. The sounds of my curtains being drawn and the sudden disappearance of the sun on my skin hinted he’d cocooned us in our own private world.
I breathed hard as he came close.
My skin broke out in searing goosebumps as he cupped my chin and pushed me down. “Kneel.”
I gulped as a ricochet of womb-clenching lust had my knees wobbling.
My mouth watered to suck him.
But the moment I was on my knees, he pushed me until I sprawled backward, kicking my legs out, and landing on the nest of cushions I’d scattered on the floor while waiting for a new couch to be delivered.
Disappointment filled me.
I wanted to suck him.
I wanted to make him break as much as he was breaking me.
“Why do you have to be so gorgeous?” he whispered, his finger tracing the seam of my core.
I flinched at the intimate touch.
I moaned as he penetrated me with a single finger.
I thrashed as he drove in deep, testing my readiness, driving me straight into hell.
“Fuck, you’re wet. So incredibly wet.”
I had no words.
None.
I didn’t care what I looked like, sounded like. With my eyes blindfolded and every sense blazing, I didn’t know how much longer I could stand it.
“Do it,” I groaned. “Please.”
“Do what?” He inserted a second finger. “Make you come?”
“Fuck me. I-I’m going out of my mind.”
And there, in my X-induced delirium, Milton couldn’t find me. The past didn’t exist. The future didn’t matter. I had no bills to pay, no walls to paint, no healing to solve.
I was just his, and I really, really needed him to fuck me because my heart was about to burst and my sanity about to shatter.
Shaking so hard my teeth clacked, I reached for the mask blinding me. I needed to see him. To watch. But his fingers withdrew, and he tapped them warningly against my thigh. “If you want me to fuck you, you’ll leave the mask where it is.”
I pouted but dropped my arms. “It isn’t fair. I want to see you.”
“Next time.” His voice resembled brimstone and broken glass.
The promise of a next time made an orgasm build. Heavy heat coiled around my bones, tingling in my blood.
Something rustled again, followed by the telltale sound of a condom wrapper. The slap of his wallet on the floor hinted he’d come prepared.
I was both grateful and jealous.
If he ever tried to use those supplies on another girl, I would break far more laws than he had while stalking me.
The cushions shifted a little as he moved between my legs, but he didn’t lie down. Instead, he wrapped his arms around my shoulders and sat me up. His palms cupped my cheeks as we sat facing each other.
His lips found mine again.
I melted.
I burned and burned and burned as he bit my bottom lip and kissed me.
With a soft cry, I crawled onto his lap and slung my arms around his neck.
He didn’t stop me.
With a snarl, he clutched me painfully close and plastered our stinging, searing nakedness together. My breasts to his chest, my wetness against the hard length of his erection stabbing upright between us.
Our kiss turned as deep as before. As demonic as before.
I felt endlessly safe, tragically adrift, and incredibly, wonderfully free.
A grunt tore out of him as our kiss turned savage.
Lick for lick, bite for bite.
But that wasn’t even the best part.
The best part was how he hugged me. Squeezed me. Suffocated me in his arms as if he’d never let me go.
I hugged him back. Our heads tilting, our breaths merging, our bodies fighting to become one.
His hips rocked against me, pulsing with hungry little thrusts.
I tried to reach between us, but he grabbed my wrist and planted my palm on his chest again, granting his thundering heartbeat into my control. His mouth opened wide, kissing me, binding me, keeping me his prisoner to plunder.
I couldn’t fight.
Couldn’t run.
But unlike the harrowing helplessness of the night I’d almost died, I wasn’t afraid.
I was ecstatic, electric, and enthralled.
I needed more.
So much more.
Looping his fingers around my throat, he squeezed just a little.
I froze as the past did its best to splice over the now.
Another man had once touched me there.
Another man had almost killed me.
But he was gone, and X was here, and I wasn’t responsible for my reaction.
Pressing my throat deeper into his grip, I dropped my hand from his chest and wrapped my fingers around his condom-slippery cock.
He grunted as I squeezed him. His fingers flexed around my neck in time with mine.
It made me wild.
We became mirror images—plugged into the same mania, mimicking each other with matching finger pulses.
My breath caught as he squeezed me.
His breath choked as I squeezed him.
We writhed together, desperation becoming not just a word but an existential crisis.
“Please,” I moaned. “ Please —”
“Fuck, what are you doing to me?” His forehead pressed against mine as his lips parted wide, sucking in air as I jerked him up and down. “I can’t think. I can’t move. I can barely function with how much I need you.”
“Then take me.” I fisted the base of his cock.
He let out an explosive breath, his erection throbbing in my hand.
“Sailor… fuck .” He kissed me again, meanly, desperately. “You’re making me lose my goddamn mind.”
With the blackness blinding me, my other senses turned ruthlessly sharp.
His voice. His smell. His energy.
They weren’t unknown.
I’d heard his voice for years. I’d smelled his crisp, clean scent on the summer breeze. I recognised the electricity of his soul almost as if it were mine.
Something bound us together with familiarity while he kept me blind and dined on me.
Was this what people meant when they said they found their soulmate?
Was it normal to feel as if you knew someone to the depths of their being when you didn’t even know their face?
“Put me inside you,” he whisper-choked against my ear. “Now. Before I come all over you.”
I shuddered as every part of me turned into molten obedience.
Arching up on my knees, I angled him and hovered.
When I didn’t sink down, he groaned, “Are you trying to kill me? What are you waiting for?” His hand fell from around my throat, trailing to my breast and squeezing hard. “Do it. Before I break.”
“I can’t see.” I licked my lips. “I don’t know where—”
“Let me.” His large hand wrapped around my smaller one, making me squeeze him extra hard. Pushing forward a little, he kissed the tip of my nose. “Now sit.”
I obeyed.
I went slow until I felt absolute heaven.
His crown pressed against my entrance, unapologetically thick and hot and hard.
“Christ, you’re killing me.” His other arm wrapped around my waist, pulling me forward and pushing me down.
I smirked despite my heart flying out of my chest. I cried out as the first inch of him sank inside me. “Do you want me to stop?”
He let out the hottest, sexiest groan. “You stop and I die. It’s as simple as that.”
“Well then…” I clung to his shoulders and sank a little deeper. “We can’t have that.”
Another inch.
Another madness.
We both cried out. Trembling hard.
We couldn’t speak as I sank down and down, stretching over him, claiming him deep, deep inside me. Yanking our combined grip off his cock, he captured my cheeks again and smashed his mouth to mine.
He kissed me between snatches of air and tortured groans.
He kissed me as I kept sinking.
His size pinched me with his ownership. His body twitched as if he was seconds away from losing control.
The moment I sat on his thighs, joined in every way possible, we both froze.
My core slowly accepted his intrusion.
Our bodies quickly became one.
His arms wrapped tight and held me down, his mouth found mine and kissed me deep as he thrust up with ferocity.
He fucked me slow and hard, burrowing his face into my shoulder and biting me with need.
“More…” Raking my fingernails over his back, I gave into his thrusts and threw myself into begging. “Please.”
He snapped.
Launching forward, he shoved me down and pinned me to the floor. Grabbing both my hands, he slammed them above my head and gripped my wrists.
“You know what word to give me if this becomes too much.” He kissed his way down my throat. “If you don’t say it, I don’t stop.”
My skin misted with sweat. My pulse skyrocketed. I bordered on obsession as he held my wrists, and plunged his cock inside me.
I waited for an injection of terror. To remember Milton’s abuse and have this incredible experience ruined.
But nothing.
I felt nothing, saw nothing, heard nothing but him.
His mouth found mine again, kissing me just as hard as before.
I flung myself into his control and surrendered, opening wide for his possessive tongue.
His hips pulsed between mine, his cock pressing against my clit.
I writhed as he nipped and licked me. My legs wrapped tight around his waist, caught up in the dance, the hunger and thirst and yearning.
His back strained as I clung to him, his hips grinding deeper into me.
He bit my bottom lip.
Hard.
Too hard.
I cried out, automatically struggling.
He held me down and fucked me harder.
My mouth fell wide as he speared again and again inside me, claiming me like spoils of war.
He was ruthless and merciless, and I’d never felt anything so good.
The two sides of me—the fighter and the fragile—collided in a chaos of sparks. He took me like he hated me, all while his kisses said he loved me. He gave me violence and salvation.
I transcended thoughts and feelings. I became nothing more than his as he plunged again and again. Taking everything I had to offer all while giving himself in return.
My back arched.
I ruptured with overwhelming completion.
This was sex.
This was freedom.
Togetherness.
Trust.
Total annihilation of self.
Everything ached.
My heart, my bones, my soul, my core.
He filled every corner of me and broke apart every shadow.
He withdrew and drove back where he belonged, shoving me harder and harder against the floor. The cushions scattered. His fingers lashed tighter on my wrists.
But he didn’t stop.
He kept taking me, breaking me, freeing me.
“Holy fuck ,” he snarled in my ear. “Why… how ? How are you doing this to me? Why do you feel this good ?”
The sensation of being too full and ruthlessly ridden brought out every primitive instinct.
My hips rocked up, forcing him even deeper.
He growled and fucked me in answer.
We strained against each other. Trembling and sweating and going out of our minds with need.
His pulses came faster and faster, stabbing into me again and again, setting my blood on fire.
I tensed as stars popped in my veins.
I gasped as he conjured pure heaven.
My eyes snapped closed behind my blindfold as everything coiled to erupt.
I couldn’t stand it, couldn’t survive it.
I wanted to shatter. I could barely speak as I fought where he held me and begged, “Please… please .”
Collapsing over me, he found my mouth again and kissed me.
He never stopped taking, his hips pumping with savage need.
We were infected with the same violent sickness. The same uncontrollable connection.
“I can’t…I can’t wait much longer.” He licked my bottom lip. “You need to come for me. Right now.”
A full-body shudder had me so close.
Angling his cock, we both groaned as the depth changed and he pressed against a tingling spot inside me. The base of him rubbed perfectly against my clit.
“Oh God. Yes…right there. Don’t—” My voice cut off as he shoved me face first into something sparkly and sharp and delicious. “Don’t stop. God, please don’t stop.”
“Never.” He grunted, driving again and again. “I can’t.”
I saw literal shooting stars.
My thighs trembled around his hips. The sounds of him fucking me made me spiral that final hill.
Sucking in a breath, his lips brushed my ear as his hands let my wrists go only to land in my hair and hold me down. His weight smothered me against the floor.
Nowhere to go.
No way to stop him.
For a horrifying second, I panicked but then his whisper set me free. “I’m the one inside you, Sailor. I’m the one fucking you. From now on, I’m the only one. You belong to me and you’re going to come for me. Because the moment you do, I can join you and, ah fuck —”
I came.
I shattered.
He felt me.
He swallowed a curse as I cried out, convulsing with body-fisting waves.
Clench after clench, I exploded with the best orgasm of my life, milking him, gripping him, making him—
“Jesus Christ .” His pace switched to shallow rutting pumps, captured by his own release. His back locked beneath my fingers; his groan echoed in the room.
His release added another level to mine and I lost myself to it.
We clung to each other as we fell and shattered and when the explosion ceased, we flopped into a sticky, sweaty mess and didn’t say a word.
We couldn’t.
There weren’t any to say.
It was just…perfect.